


Breathless

by Linnrinn



Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28209177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnrinn/pseuds/Linnrinn
Summary: Nile deals with the aftermath of Merrick's lab and the fallout of still adjusting to immortal life.
Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066418
Comments: 1
Kudos: 47





	Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> After watching the scene's after Nile's first death where she is struggling to make sense of what happened as well as her coming to terms with what her immortality means on the plane with Andy, it struck me how much it looked like she had specific and strategic plans for managing anxiety and panic attacks which would suggest she might have had experience with it before (ie, working out as an outlet, listening to music and praying to center herself, ect). so i thought, maybe its a thing she's struggled with in the past and learned to manage.  
> I love the idea of a woman being so strong and capable yet still showing vulnerabilities that she handles and conquers on the daily. And while the movie implies she's a bit more settled with her immortality, i wouldn't imagine it would be something that just resolves itself immediately. Hence...this little piece came to mind.
> 
> FIRST TIME IVE EVER PUBLICLY POSTED WRITINGS BEFORE! BE GENTLE!

Nile couldn’t breathe. She jolted awake from a nightmare to find herself gasping for breath like a fish out of water. Her chest felt tight and painful, constricting her lungs. Her limbs felt like they were tingling, edging towards numbness. She moved to sit up and the room swayed dizzily around her. Nausea rolled through her and she gripped the arms of the chair in a desperate attempt to orient herself.

They were in a single room safe house outside of the city. The tiny room boasted a pitiful galley kitchen and small bathroom off to the side. There was no bed. Only a diminutive couch and armchair. Booker was backed up in a corner, long frame folded in an attempt to make himself as small as possible. Joe and Nicky had curled up together on the other side of the room, as far as possible from Booker. Andy had been given the couch in order to afford some sort of comfort for the gunshot wound that was healing at mortal pace. That left Nile the armchair.

They’d stayed awake watching the news cover Merrick’s death, the shootings, and a subsequent fire in the laboratory until Joe was ready to bust out of his skin and string Booker up by his toes. So, they’d shut it off and tried to sleep. Andy was out first, Nicky and Joe next, and Booker last. She’d fallen asleep listening to their overlapping breathing rhythms.

Nile tried to suck in another breath and felt her stomach roil dangerously. She was having a panic attack. It’d been years since she had one. Covering her mouth to quiet her own rasping gasps, she tried to get air past the suffocating band around her chest. Not wanting to wake the others, she fled to the bathroom and shut the door. She turned the shower on full tilt before sliding down the bathroom door to sit on the ground.

The anxiety had developed in her early teens and had grown worse after a particularly bad year. Stressors would surface and she’d find herself in the midst of one before she could blink. Her mom had taken her to therapy, gotten her the help she needed to learn how to control and manage it. She’d been on medication for a short time, but had worked to managing without it, both due to the concern of side effects as well as looking towards her future military career. She’d been careful to keep it under control, knowing that it would have gotten her discharged from the Marines if it became a visible issue.

Nile frantically called to mind the breathing exercises and grounding techniques she’d been taught so long ago. She had a gif that she would normally use to regulate her breathing and music to focus on, both on her phone, but it was left in the chair and she didn’t dare risk going back for it. Placing her hands on her chest, she felt the rapid rise and fall and tried to slowly her inhale through her nose. Tears filled her eyes as the panic threatened to overwhelm her.

_Inhale.1…2…3…4…Exhale. 1…2…3…4._

The nightmare had been a mismatch of things, blurry snapshots that ran together like watercolor. She saw mother and brother asking her why she left them, only to shout their hate for her when she stood over their graves in later decades. Andy dying on the lab table, green eyes dull and skin cold and gray. Booker, Nicky and Joe’s corpses were split open and rotting like a spoon had scooped out the insides and left the rest. Blood from all the men they’d killed in Merrick’s lab coating her hands and then eating away at the skin like acid. Andy had told her to feel it and never grow numb to killing, but she wished she didn’t feel anything at that moment. She’d even dreamt of Quynh, seeing herself locked into a coffin next to the other women, screaming in terror as water poured into her lungs.

_Inhale.1…2…3…4…Exhale. 1…2…3…4._

Choking down a bitter cry, one hand gripped the tattered bathmat under her in a desperate attempt to ground herself. She wanted her mom, who used to hold her and rock her when her panic attacks were really bad. She wanted to go home and see her brother. She wanted to know why she had been chosen to be immortal. To be saddled with the horrors of dying only to know you will come back to repeat it all in an endless cycle. It was all so much and entirely too much to think about.

_Inhale.1…2…3…4…Exhale. 1…2…3…4._

Nile prayed, pouring out her litany of worries, fears, and griefs in a desperate attempt to prevent them from overwhelming her. The gold cross under the palm on her sternum pressed into her skin and she narrowed her attention to it. Despite what Andy said, she knew God existed and was hearing her, watching over her, strengthening her.

_Inhale.1…2…3…4…Exhale. 1…2…3…4._

For a moment, she thought that she would pass out as black spots danced in her vision, and then by the tiniest of increments, it lessened.

_Inhale.1…2…3…4…Exhale. 1…2…3…4._

She took a halting, hitched breath that echoed in the bathroom.

_Inhale.1…2…3…4…Exhale. 1…2…3…4._

The band around her chest loosened by degrees and only rocked instead of spun.

 _Inhale.1…2…3…4…Exhale. 1…2…3…4_.

She took another breath, deeper this time. And another. And another. Gradually, the attack eased, leaving her a trembling, sweaty puddle of exhaustion on the cracked and aged linoleum. She lay down to press a cheek against the coldness of the floor, while trying to muster the strength to move. She could have been there hours or minutes. She didn’t know which it was.

Anxiety had been something she had struggled with for so long, but something she tried to keep close to the vest at all times. Her therapist, after many months of sessions, had once described how the summary parts of her life all add up to inevitably developing anxiety and dealing with panic attacks. She grew up in a high stress environment with a single mom in a rough neighborhood on a low budget and felt pressure to succeed in education, career, future success and to assist her family, all while the acute fear of failure weighed even heavier. Combine that with a very driven and ambitious nature (the same characteristic as her father and the drive _to be like_ her father) and her natural tendency to take on leadership roles and responsibilities, meant she was the perfect candidate for what she dealt with.

And deal with it, she did. She refused to allow it to be something that hampered her at every turn and her mother had been a huge support as she’d navigated it and it’s part in her life. She knew she would always suffer from it and some days would be worse than others, but she was determined to not let it dictate her.

Grunting, she pushed herself to a sitting position and began to remove her clothes with shaky fingers. Setting it all on the counter, she stepped into the, thankfully, decently warm water. Closing her eyes, she let the shower spray wash away the sweat and bitter tinges of the dreams, the attack, the worries for the future and focused on the positives and what she could control.

She thought of something she could control, that wasn’t out of her hands. She missed her family, but the alternative of deciding reveal herself and endanger them was out of the question, especially after seeing how Merrick had gone after them. She figured there would be others who would have no scruples about hurting innocents to get what they wanted. Nile didn’t know if she agreed with Booker about her revealing her existence would end with them hating her for her immortality as they passed away in front of her. But she was reluctant to allow her need to see them be the catalyst for something that would end up hurting them. So, she decided to make the choice that would protect them. Resolve flooded her limbs and shored up her chest.

She focused on a positive. The irony of being in the military and deployed was her inability to fully numb herself to the reality of taking life, and seeing the overwhelming amount of death that seemed to follow everyone in the other room, she had panicked, not knowing how she could live this life if it was so bloodstained as it appeared. But being able to protect people, maybe help and do some good with the immortality she possessed, settled some of the distress that normally came to her when taking a life. Like Andy said, she didn’t want to stop feeling each death, but she needed a way to keep it from drowning her. And doing some good seemed to be the answer. Purpose centered her.

An unexpected blessing she held onto: she’d lost a family, but these people seemed to be willing to step in as a second family (most of them at least). They were alive and together. She wasn’t alone. She would have people to surround her and shore her up even as she did the same for them. It was hard to actively commit to a group of people you had only known for a few days, but compared to the prospect of not having anyone, she was willing to try. She’d been given another family, and she would not waste it. She tasted the loneliness but didn’t let it swallow her.

Shutting off the water, she redressed and swiped a hand across the mirror to clear the fog, looking back at the woman in front of her, hands braced on the sink and elbows locked to hold herself upright.

_Inhale.1…2…3…4…Exhale. 1…2…3…4._

**Author's Note:**

> Ive written some further stuff involving Quynh's return, Booker's journey towards penance and getting his shit together, excerpts with Joe and Nicky, or Andy and Quynh, and Nile still learning about immortality and just more adventures with the immortal family in general.  
> let me know if you'd like to see more!


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